


'I < 3 U'

by TheKats



Series: Prompted Oneshots [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: I got diabetes now, John's a mathematical mastermind, M/M, Sherlock's at a loss, Sherlock's baffled, There's a bit of fluff, and also just as sweet, hahaha, no seriously, soft as cotton candy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 21:46:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4581270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKats/pseuds/TheKats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John has a little pad next to his computer where he doodles stuff. One morning, Sherlock comes home, looks at the pad.<br/>He proceeds to take over the white board and spends all day trying to work out the equation, and ends up sulking and angry because he just can't understand the logic of it, and why John would write such an incomprehensible math problem. Probably just to piss him off.<br/>... Let's hope that Watson gets back from the hospital fast enough to help him understand what it means!</p>
            </blockquote>





	'I < 3 U'

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Midonyah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midonyah/gifts).



> I got prompted! Not with smut, but with a very genius, little oneshot material kind of prompt! I had to change the time of day, unfortunately, from "evening" to "morning/day", but just to make it a little more dramatic ;)
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did writing it! More to come and any more prompts from you: give me! :P
> 
> Kats ♥

“John, I need to borrow your laptop.” And so he did. Letting himself glide onto the wooden seat of their living room desk chair, Sherlock pulled the big lump of technology from the middle of the tabletop towards him and opened it up, pressed the power button and waited for the old machine to come to life. In those couple of seconds, he let his gaze drift to the notepad John kept next to it, sometimes writing down 'crucial' information for Sherlock when he was doing research for cases; sometimes just scribbling thoughts on the white pages.  
They didn't have a case. Not in a couple of days.

Then why _ever_ should John concern himself with mathematical equations, or rather formulas? Surely he didn't just muse about them.  
Even more confusing was the fact, that Sherlock didn't recognise it. It was unlike anything he had learned or even seen in all his life – and his mother was a mathematician, so he had seen quite a lot of them in his childhood.

But this.. this didn't even make sense, well not on first glance, at least.

He processed. The '<' and the '3' were obvious. It was the other two that made no real sense to him. Not only that Sherlock had never seen John anywhere near beth numbers, but he was shocked to see that his clever little doctor had actually written the symbol into a formula this complex.   
However, it meant that the last symbol must have been meant to be a variable – but why would John use a 'U' instead of the common 'a', 'b', 'c', 'x', 'y' or 'z'? It couldn't have been another symbol because all symbols of that shape Sherlock knew, where always written between numbers or variables, indicating a certain context linking both. So, the question was, what was 'U'? 3*U or simply 3U was apparently greater than beth and, to be fair, that could have been everything or nothing.  
He turned it this way and that, trying out numbers of all kinds.  
He could phone his mother, sure, but that also bore the risk of having him promise to take her out to a horrendously boring event just to get out of the conversation. No, he could do this, he could solve it himself!

  
  
Hours after he'd left, John climbed the stairs to 221B again. Pulling extra hours hadn't been such a good idea after all: he was completely knackered! It was dark outside and his mind was so bored, it had signed out a long time ago. 'Feeling glad' didn't begin to describe how he thought about coming back home, back to Sherlock and therefore the most interesting man he'd ever met. Surely, Sherlock would give him some occupation, something that made him feel _useful_ .

His first reaction to entering the flat was to frown at Sherlock standing on the table in front of the sofa.  
His second reaction was to frown even deeper at the cluttered wall.

“Case?” he asked, taking off and hanging up his coat.

 

“Yes.” was the short, almost snappy answer. 

 

“Fill me in?” the doctor asked, squinting at the alarming masses of sheets of paper, showing all kinds of symbols and numbers John had no memory of ever seeing.

 

“The equation.”

 

“Equation?”  
  
“Yes, obviously.”  
  
Throwing his friend a quick glance, John was again caught by the hypnotic pair of eyes, jumping around on the loads of notes and, sometimes, even almost completely black paper, crowded with so much ink, there were barely any white spots left. Thinking about how, in Sherlock's head, there was a pattern to this whole mess and a system connecting all these parts was not only fascinating, but somehow even heart-warming because John couldn't read anything into this for shit.  
Amidst all these sheets, _it_ wasn't obvious to John at all.

 

“Your note on the desk,” Sherlock said suddenly in his monotone voice, “I can't figure it out. I've tried every possibility, eliminated everything impossible, but I can't find a solution!” He was pissed. Well, he sounded pissed, at least.

 

“O..kay? What Equation?” John asked, confused, because Sherlock had lost him a mile back.

 

“I just told you!” the man hissed, whirling around with a grace no grown man standing on a coffee table should have. He stepped down and approached John rapidly, dangerously, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him while mad eyes burned a hole into his soul. “I don't get it, I don't understand, John, what is it, what is the answer?! I need to know!!”   
  
“Wha-wh- calm down! The answer to what?” 

  
“This!” Sherlock almost shouted in apparent frustration, practically jumping over the table and onto the sofa, ripping a smaller paper off the wall and returning to John just as quickly. 

 

The next second, he had his little note from this morning shoved into his face. He grabbed the sheet, thinking about how he'd not expected Sherlock to find it in the first place and if, to just ignore it as something 'dull'. Now, he was an inch away from bursting with laughter. “That's it?” was all he managed fluently without snickering. 

 

Apparently, Sherlock mistook his reaction as being laughed at and got even more annoyed. “Well, what's the answer?!”

 

John seriously fought his chuckles now because, God, that was so adorable! He leaned forward a little, gesturing for Sherlock to come closer as well. The detective was so eager and intrigued, he didn't even think it weird John would tell him like it was a secret – which was even more adorable.  
When their cheeks were so close John could feel the warmth radiating from Sherlock's face, he turned his head a little, whispering a “this” in his ear before pecking his cheek and moving away again.

 

Sherlock regarded him in extreme confusion. “What did you do that for?”

 

“It was the answer.” John just replied with a sassy grin and turned around. 

 

  
The next day, Sherlock googled for 'I < 3 U'.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you don't get the "beth numbers" bit - google images should explain how it fits ;)


End file.
